


darling, we outshone the stars

by royalwisteria



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (in the sense that they do not get married), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bittersweet, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Reverse Chronology, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-26 20:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2664830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royalwisteria/pseuds/royalwisteria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy and Clarke were together for three and a half years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	darling, we outshone the stars

**Author's Note:**

> as the tag says, this story is told in **reverse chronological order**. enjoy!

A year passes and Clarke opens the closet door and is almost surprised when one of the trash bags falls from a high shelf on top of her. It’s heavy and she stumbles against the opposite wall in surprise. The other two tumble out and one unties and out spills her heart. Heart beating faster, she crouches by the pile and starts to go through everything once more.

It still hurts. The piercing pain in her heart is still there, but it’s dulled, not so bad. She can sift through everything and read the letters again, recall what his handwriting looks like with no problem. The sweater smells of mothballs and feet from being near an old pair of his sneakers. His toothbrush is at the bottom.

She doesn’t feel like crying, but the thought does occur to her. She cried when they first broke up, but not much afterwards. Maybe she should call him, ask him about his stuff, but a year is a pretty long time. Probably better not to. He never called to ask for his stuff, so Clarke’s just gonna toss it. They were together for so long, yet he left her apartment a year ago and they haven’t spoken since.

Carrying all three bags is difficult, but Clarke manages to get it all down to ground floor and tosses them into the dumpster. She feels lighter when she pulls the lid down. She feels better. She’s let go.

 

 

It’s been three months and Clarke is trying to date someone new. It’s not working and after a few weeks of trying, she calls it off.

She’s still not sleeping well.

 

 

It’s been a week and Clarke can’t sleep, but at least she’s stopped relying on alcohol to escape. His things are still littered around her apartment— shoes, papers, a small stuffed animal he won from a claw machine and gave to her. That’s ambiguous property, but she’s not sure she wants it because of the memories, laughing, arms hooked together, full after a nice dinner at a casual restaurant. His books are still on her bookshelves and he left his toothbrush behind. Who forgets their toothbrush?

Instead of tossing and turning for another night, Clarke stays up and collects all the bits and pieces of a previous life. She uses a trash bag and tosses everything in there. The books, the letters they sent each other, the sweater she took one winter: it all goes in. Every last bit into three separate trash bags.

Dawn has come when she finishes. The trash bags are stuffed into the front door closet, the closet she never uses, and she chooses not to think about it.

 

 

Clarke doesn’t remember what they fought about, but she _is_ incredibly drunk. Again. Yesterday, Bellamy yelled at her for something and then walked out and she ran away to a bar. He was really angry. That’s the only clear detail she can dredge up. When she gets home, she’ll collapse into a sobbing wreck, because that’s what happens when she’s drunk. The bartender keeps on looking over at her worriedly and Clarke doesn’t really get it— does she look that shitty? She tries to look put-together every morning. It’s important to her and a habit she picked up from her mom. She put in red-eye drops in the morning and did everything she could to depress the puffiness around her eyes. She thought she had done a decent job.

Some guy tries to hit on her and she brushes him away and starts to stand. She wobbles and he’s there to catch her, an arm around her waist. She doesn’t want it there. It’s not like Bellamy’s arm, strong, warm, familiar and she slaps him and then falls backwards onto her butt.

The tears are starting. She can remember the last words he said— _We’re done and I’m leaving_. They seem sort of trite, now, after six shots and three beers, and she starts laughing. It quickly turns into a weird mix between laughing and crying and the bartender helps her stand.

“Can you get home by yourself?” he asks, two arms steadying her.

She shrugs, head lolling around. “Maybe.”

He calls her a taxi for the second night in a row and when she gets home the lights are on, just like she left them. She doesn’t bother as she crosses through the apartment and curls into his pillow because it smells like him, cinnamon and their shampoo, and cries.

 

 

He’s home late, again, and Clarke is hunched over a cookbook in the kitchen, measuring soy sauce for his favorite salmon marinade. Outside, the sun hasn’t begun to set, the best part of mid-summer. He slams the door on his way in and is fighting aggressively with his tie as he steps into the kitchen. It’s unusual for him to wear a tie.

“Hey,” she says, frowning and standing straight. “Everything okay?

Bellamy stops fighting the tie and lets it hang, a mangled mess and out of his collar, around his neck. “No,” he growls, “I need to talk to you.”

She blinks. “Okay, sure, about what?”

“You need to stop involving your mom in our relationship.”

Clarke inhales quickly, taking an unintended step backwards that leads to Bellamy’s face lighting up in vindictive delight at being right. “I— What’re you talking about?”

“You _know_ ,” he says, walking over to the counter. She’s thankful it’s there to put distance between them. She doesn’t like to be around Bellamy when he’s angry for the sheer space he takes up, feeling like she dwindles into the corner. It makes her want to snap back even more, making remarks about everything she knows that bothers him. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“No, I don’t,” she lies.

“Your mom called me today and ordered me to stop arguing with you and stop making you cook dinner, do the laundry, and to quit my job.”

Clarke frowns and shakes her head. “I didn’t— I didn’t ask her to do that, and you know that Bellamy. I don’t complain to her like you think I do.”

“Don’t be so fucking ridiculous!” Bellamy yells, hands slamming on the counter. She flinches. “Our relationship is about us and I have had it with you telling your mom every single goddamn detail of our relationship.”

“Bellamy, I don’t— I don’t mean to,” Clarke protests, hands going up in a helpless gesture. “All I do is tell her about my day, nothing else. I’ve— I try not to, but sometime I just tell her things. I don’t mean anything bad by it. I’m trying.”

“Your mom has been telling me to quit the army every other week for the past three years. You know that and I know you know that because I’ve told you. Yet your mom hasn’t stopped telling me to and you have done jackshit about it.”

“Fine, I’ll talk to her, ask her to stop.”

He sighs and, elbows on the counter, leans over and rests his head in his hands. It’s not a good sign and fear wells in Clarke’s chest. “That’s not it,” he mutters. “That isn’t it.”

“No,” she whispers, hands moving to her waist, running up and down from waist to hips, around, fingers digging into her stomach. “No, no, no, Bellamy, please. We can fix this. We can still be good together.”

“Clarke,” he says, head still bowed over the counter. “I can’t handle this anymore. Your mom and— we fight all the time, still. We said we would get better, but I— I don’t think we can do this anymore.”

“No, we’re still good,” she insists, palms anchored at her hips. “We— we still can do this. I’m making your favorite salmon tonight,” she continues, hands pulling away and starting to fiddle with the soy sauce bottle, pouring in extra, dumping the ginger and sugar in as well. “I don’t—”

“We’re done, Clarke, and you know it. We haven’t had sex in weeks.”

Her hands stop and they go to mix the sauce together, then carefully lay the salmon in as well, fingers curling into it, indenting the soft meat.

“I’ll come by in a couple days to pick up my stuff. We’re done and I’m leaving.”

 

 

It’s chilly out and she shivers in her spring jacket. The forecast said it would be decently warm today, a lovely early-May day, but it’s not. She desperately wanted it to be warm because they’re going on a date and good weather always makes for better dates. They’re seeing a movie, some action flick Bellamy’s been waiting for since her first saw the trailer five months ago.

He’s late. She shifts. She hates it when he’s late. He said he was gonna get better, meet her at the times they agree on. He’s coming from work, but— Clarke banishes the thought. They’re gonna get better. They promised each other they would and they will. The thought of breaking up tears her apart and she can’t imagine a life without him anymore. Her life is so intertwined with his that they’re two puzzle pieces in a puzzle of just two pieces. At least, that’s what she first thought when they started dating, when everything was roses and daisies.

Sometimes she still thinks that, like when he comes up to her and kisses her like they haven’t been kissing each other for two years. He settles her hands at her waist like he always do and she reaches up to hook her arms around his neck like she always does.

 _See?_ she tells herself as they break apart, smiling sillily, and they clasp hands as they enter the theater. _Just fine_.

 

 

Three years in and Clarke’s making dinner most of the time and she’s sick and tired of it. She’s a good cook, she knows that, because her dad was a chef and she used to trail him around in the kitchen, helping him chop parsley and other herbs, vegetables and more. They made wonderful food together and she carried on the tradition when he died as best she could. Her mom hates cooking and so it came down to Clarke to do it. 

“But Bellamy could stand to be around and cook a little more,” she tells her mom on the phone. “I mean, I get that he’s busy at base, but come on. I’d be fine with plain spaghetti or whatever. Even you can cook that much.”

Her mom sighs and Clarke can imagine the eye roll and she knows what’s coming up next. “I don’t like you dating a soldier.”

“Mom,” she hisses. “I don’t care if he’s a soldier or whatever. I can work where ever, so it doesn’t matter.”

“And if he’s sent overseas?” her mom counters.

“I’ll still go with him,” she states. “All I want is for him to cook a little more, do the dishes, make the bed. Little stuff.”

There’s another sigh. “Clarke.”

“Mom, it’s fine,” she says. “We’ll talk about it, sort the problems out.”

“I don’t think he’s good for you.”

Clarke snorts and rubs her nose with the back of her hand. She’s chopping garlic and her hands stink. “He’s great for me, mom. I’m a better person now.”

“You were just as good a person before you met him,” she says

“Yeah, whatever,” she mumbles. “I should finish cooking, we can talk later.”

“Love you,” her mom says, because ever since dad died in an accident, she’s made sure to remind Clarke at the end of every conversation.

“Love you too.”

 

 

Clarke wanted to spend this Christmas with her mom and Bellamy, and technically that’s what is currently happening. It is the three of them, sitting around a small Christmas tree they decorated last night and there are some presents scattered at the bottom. It is Christmas afternoon and outside is the comparatively warm California winter. Bellamy is flipping through a book and her mom is drinking a Bailey’s heavy coffee.

She desperately wants the two of them to get along, but her mom doesn’t approve of Bellamy and Bellamy hates her mom’s needling. She was hoping a little Christmas cheer would help the two of them get along better, but there is a chilly silence hanging over the three of them.

“I’ll start then,” she says and picks up a present for herself. It’s from her mom and it’s a book; one that Bellamy already owns, but she doesn’t say so. “Thanks, mom,” she says and hugs her. Bellamy raises an eyebrow at her and Clarke shakes her head minutely to silence him. “Here’s one for you,” she says, shoving one into Bellamy’s grasp and then another into her mom’s.

Bellamy puts his book down; her mom sets her alcohol coffee aside. They open their presents at the same time and they look moderately happy, but both return to their previous actions. Clarke has had enough and she grabs her phone on her way out the door. “Heading out for a bit,” she yells without looking at them as she pulls her shoes on.

Neither follow her out the door and Clarke hugs her autumn jacket tighter around herself as she walks through familiar, San Francisco neighborhoods. An hour later she gets home and finds the two of them bickering over how to cook the Christmas chicken. She sighs and kicks the two of them out. Both of them dislike cooking anyways. She’ll just do it all herself.

 

 

They walk home from the ice skating rink, hands buried in their pockets, too cold to talk much. It’s only the beginning of winter, but it feels like its been winter for a long, long time. When they get home, Bellamy’s chilled fingers fumbling with the key, they walk around in their winter gear for a while longer.

“I bet it’s gonna be the coldest winter we’ve had in years,” Bellamy says as he heats milk for hot chocolate.

“I agree,” Clarke says, carefully pulling off her gloves. Her fingers are numb and hard to move. “But I’m from California and I’ve never gotten used to these north-eastern winters.”

Bellamy smiles and leans over to kiss her on the cheek. “Go put something warm on,” he says, “you complained about how thin your sweater was at the rink.”

She nods and tip-toes to peck him on the lips before going to their bedroom. She emerges wearing one of Bellamy’s warmest US ARMY sweatshirts and smirks at the ‘come on really’ look on his face.

“It’s warmer then all of my sweaters,” she says. “Gonna complain?”

He laughs and passes her a sweet-smelling, steaming mug. “Not a peep.”

She takes a sip and glances at the calendar. “So we’re going to my moms for Christmas,” she broaches and tries not to feel shitty when Bellamy grimaces.

“Yeah. We spent last year with Octavia and Lincoln, so this year is with your family.” 

Clarke hums an assent and— it’s not aimed at her, but Bellamy’s animosity towards her mom, the only family she has left, has always rankled her and felt personal. It’s her _mom_ , the woman who raised her. Bellamy shouldn’t be so dismissive of her.

 

 

His flight lands at 3pm but Clarke arrives at 1pm. They’ve been apart for seven months but it feels like four years. The letters have not felt like nearly enough. They had one video chat back in June, but it’s been too long since she’s got to hear his voice and see his face. 

Her legs jiggle up and down as she sits on the uncomfortable airport seat. There’s going to be a ridiculous parking fee to pay, but she doesn’t care. This distance has been ridiculous. She should have gone with him— not that he asked, but still. They’ve been together for almost two years and she thought she’d be fine without him for these five months. Clarke was wrong.

She calls her mom, who is disapproving of Bellamy for no reason whatsoever. He’s in the army, yeah, but that doesn’t matter to her. Then she calls Octavia, who thanks her for the card she sent to Lincoln for his birthday.

There’s still another hour to wait and she goes by the Dunkin Donuts and buys coffee and a couple of doughnuts. The doughnuts she inhales but the coffee she sips. her hands curve around the cheap paper cup. When done with the coffee, she stands up and throws it away and takes to walking around the baggage claim while waiting. It’s the international terminal and almost every reunion seems to involve tears. Clarke’s not fooling herself though because she’s pretty positive she’s going to cry as well.

The next time she looks at the arrivals and departures board, Bellamy’s flight has landed. Hugging herself, Clarke waits, an emotional mess, at the door where he’ll be coming out of. Ten minutes pass, then another five. She starts five steps back and forth, back and forth, and then she sees his curly head come around the barrier.

Her voice is caught in her throat. He’s tired, of fucking course he’s tired he’s been on a plane for the best however many hours, and his hair is flat, shorter and not the curly mass she knows. But it’s him. His face is so beloved and ingrained upon her heart.

“Bellamy,” she cries, walking and then running to him. He smiles when he sees her and holds his arms out to catch her as she leaps into his arms.

“Clarke,” he murmurs next to her ear, strong arms holding her before setting her carefully back onto the ground.

“I missed you so much,” she mumbles into his neck. “So much.”

“I missed you too,” he says, arms still tight around her torso. Her hands clench his shirt in a tight grasp. He’s achingly real. He is real and solid under her fingers. The only thing that’s different is the extra strength that he gained while away.

She pulls away to cup his face and kiss him. His arms lower to her waist, hands pulling hard at her hips and he kisses her back fiercely. Clarke doesn’t want to pull away, but she wants to get him home and see just how much stronger he’s become.

The parking fee is just as expensive as she thought it’d be and she hasn’t broken so many speeding laws since she was seventeen.

 

 

Clarke didn’t think she’d enjoy writing letters, but she is. She writes down mundane things— how work was, the stifling heat of summer, a new pair of shoes. She only writes down how much she misses him now and then. Every letter she ends with an _I love you_ , because her last words to her dad were ‘stop bossing me around’ and she regrets it.

Bellamy’s letters are light on the feelings front as well, but Clarke doesn’t mind. This is the first time she’s gotten to know a boyfriend’s handwriting so intimately, the blocky d’s and b’s and the small loops on his y’s and g’s. Before, she could have recognized his handwriting, but now she knows it in a glance.

 

 

“How long will you be gone for?” Clarke asks whilst methodically pouring two glasses of red wine, late winter, a foot of snow on the ground. She hands one to Bellamy and she’s pleased to note that her hands aren’t shaking; there’s nary a tremble.

“Five months,” he sees, taking his glass from her but sets it down immediately. “I meant to tell you earlier,” he continues, taking her glass from her hands and coming closer to rest hands on her waist. He always does this. He uses physicality to distract her or make her more amenable— just last week, he did this to wheedle her into going to see this traveling circus she was in no way interested in.

“Well,” she says, picking up her glass of wine and taking a sip, “you’re telling me now, right?” His lips flatten; she can tell she’s not acting the way he wants to her, but she doesn’t really care about that.

“Yes. I am. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says, taking a step away. There’s another sip of wine, a big one, and she sets the glass down. “Let’s get started on dinner.”

Bellamy doesn’t look happy and approaches her again. His hands are at his waist— always her goddamn waist— and his thumbs rub circles under her shirt, on her skin. “You don’t have to put up some sort of okay front,” he tells her, voice low and rough. “It’s okay.”

Clarke is still before she tip-toes to put her arms around his neck and brings him down for a hungry kiss. “I’m gonna miss the hell out of you,” she says, breaking away and breathing deeply. “So don’t you even think about dawdling on your way home.”

 

 

Their new condo is nice. Spacious, even. It has high ceilings and faces east so they can see the sunrise— not something that Bellamy is particularly enthused about, being a night person, but he capitulated for her sake. They don’t have enough furniture, not yet, and she tells Bellamy that they need to go by Ikea or someplace to get more. He rolls his eyes, but agrees as he kicks dead leaves that had trailed in after them out the door. Bellamy unpacks their books first and lines them up neatly; he begs Clarke to come and take a look while she’s putting the practical things away. They do look nice in the apartment, cream walls and dark wood, but the bed still needs to be made and clothes to be unpacked.

When they christen their condo with sex, her moans echo embarrassingly loud in the larger rooms. She stops and covers her mouth and Bellamy collapses on top of her laughing. “It’s not funny,” she grumbles, pushing at his shoulder. He rolls away, dick still hard, and looks at her with affection.

“It is and you know it.”

She pouts and climbs on top of him. “No it’s not,” she murmurs, dipping close to kiss him. He eagerly kisses back and they resume. At first they ignore the new echoes, then forget them.

 

 

The pipes break again. Clarke is fed up with their small, old apartment and tells Bellamy so after calling the lessor about the problem. “We should look for a nicer place,” she says while typing. “I’m tired of calling up Kane. It’s also not meant for two people, or at least not two people as expansive as we’ve become.”

Bellamy sighs and she hears him click his pen. “I like the place though,” he says wistfully. “Our first place together.”

She smiles and looks out her office window. “I know. The water pressure is terrible and the oven is shit, but it’s our first place together.”

“Yeah.” Bellamy sounds fond. She always gets warm when he sounds fond, because it’s this precious sound between happy and exuberant somehow— Bellamy being fond is the best thing in the world. “I’ll call a couple friends up, see if they know anyone selling or moving out.”

She smiles and watches clouds float by. “Love you,” she says and waits to hear it before they hang up.

 

 

“Fucking goddammit,” Clarke screams, dropping the tray onto the open oven door. “Jesus _christ_ , Bellamy, do something with it.” She’s near tears and her hand hurts like a fucking bitch from accidentally burning herself and she starts running it under water. There’s a bright red band across the back of her hand and she whimpers as the cold water slowly turns her hand numb. There’s clatter as Bellamy picks the lasagne tray up with two oven mitts, learning from her mistake, and puts it onto the stove. He closes the oven and then hugs her from behind, hand running up and down her forearms.

“It hurts,” she mumbles, hand limp as the water streams over.

“I know, I know,” he whispers into her neck and then kisses her, right there, below her ear. “Keep running water over it and I’ll get some frozen peas.”

He gets them in a moment and she gingerly dries her burned hand before draping the bag over her hand. “How do I look?” she asks dryly, extended her hand like the bag’s a diamond ring.

“Marvelous,” Bellamy says with an affected accent. “Like a princess.”

She laughs at the pet-name and feels marginally better.

 

 

It’s a balmy, early summer Friday evening when Bellamy pulls her into an arcade with a wheedled plea, hands on her hips, bringing her close. “It’s dirty in here,” she says with a sniff. “And noisy.”

“I’ll win you something. Go ahead, anything you want,” Bellamy says, pulling her along. She’s full from the burger she just had and pulls on his hand to slow him down as she looks around. It’s mostly full of teenagers, huddled around pinball machines and shooting games. She peers over some of their shoulders and watches as one of them neatly shoots a zombie in the head.

“I’ve never been to an arcade before,” she admits when Bellamy has stopped at a car racing game.

He raises his eyebrows. “Well, hop on, you’re in for a ride.”

She gives him a flat look because that joke was _terrible_ but sits in the faux car seat and tries to touch as little as possible.

“We’re racing against each other,” he explains as he pushes quarters into the orange slot. “Ready?”

Clarke tosses her hair, sits a little straighter, and manages to navigate the opening menu safely to the track. There it gets much trickier, figuring out the balance between accelerating, braking and learning just how sensitive the wheel is.

She loses the round and frowns. “That was a practice round,” she says as she turns to look at him. “I had a steep learning curve and you did not.”

He smiles easily, teeth flashing. The dim light throws his high cheekbones into highlight and she can see the dotting of freckles along his cheeks. “If you want.”

“I do,” she replies primly, digging for her wallet in her purse. “And I’ll pay this round.”

He rolls his eyes, but settles into his chair, hands lightly gripping his wheel. “Ready, princess?” he teases.

“To deliver your ass on a golden plate? Oh, yes.” She smirks and this time she wins. They play another round and she wins again, then he wins. Their comments have become more snarky, biting, then fun and they decide to stop after the fourth round.

“We’re too competitive for our own good,” Clarke comments as she takes his hand to help her get out of the seat.

He shrugs. “Maybe we’re too similar sometimes. Now, time for me to win you something. I’m ace at claw machines, just tell me what you want.”

She smiles, curling her hand into his. At the claw machine, she tells him she wants this small, puffy monkey and he wins a lopsided porpoise after three tries. He looks sheepish as he hands it over, but she kisses his cheek.

“I love it,” she tells him, snatching it from his hands. “Monkey, porpoise, I don’t care.”

He smiles and his hands find their rightful place on her body. “I love you,” he says and her eyes narrow.

“I love you more.”

His eyes are alight and she tries not to forget the porpoise as her arms go around his neck to bring him down for a kiss.

 

 

Octavia’s new boyfriend does not give him license to act like a little bitch and Clarke is tempted to tell him so. They’ve been dating for a year now, which means she can, yeah? A year is plenty of time to tell him what’s on her mind, but—

He’s pacing back and forth in their living room, muttering to himself, larger through his anger. She doesn’t want to approach him when he’s angry. He’s never physically angry, which would have been a dangerous sign that split them up months ago, but his words are most cruel when angry. Clarke doesn’t like to be brought to nothing having achieved nothing.

“Dinner’s ready,” she tells him quietly and his head whips to stare at her. His face relaxes in increments until there’s nothing but a soft worry line in his forehead and an almost smile on his lips.

“Sorry, Clarke,” he says as he enters the kitchen, rubbing the back of his head ruefully. She doesn’t want him to do that, because she starts to feel bad for him, and she doesn’t want that. “Octavia just stresses me out like nothing else.”

“She’s twenty-three,” she says as she pours herself her third glass of wine. “She’s an adult, Bellamy, let her date who she wants.”

He grabs a beer from the fridge. “Yeah, but— old habits die hard.”

He’s not angry anymore, which means its easier to approach him now. “She’ll be fine,” Clarke reassures him, leaving the wine behind and hugging him, ear almost to his heart. “Octavia’s brilliant and doesn’t take shit from anyone, so don’t worry so much.”

Bellamy exhales shakily and hugs her back, a hand fisting in her hair. They kiss slowly and she can feel the last bits of tension leave his body. “You’re right,” he murmurs against her lips. “She’ll be fine.”

“I’m always right,” she reminds him, stepping away to grab her wine. “Now let’s eat.”

 

 

Clarke’s not had a boyfriend this serious in all her memory. She’s freaking out, like all the time, even though she sounds very calm to her mom as she explains why they’re moving in together.

“It’s economical,” she insists. “He’s moving in with me. I’ll save on full rent and we’ll cook together, all that stuff.”

“You know I don’t like him,” her mom says with a sigh. “I don’t approve of army boys.”

Clarke mouths the words mockingly along with her mom. “And yet another reminder of why I don’t call you more often,” she says brightly as she waits for her shitty office coffee machine to finish dripping.

“That’s because you don’t call me.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “I wonder why,” she mutters. “Look, mom, we’re moving in. We’ve been dating for, like, eight months and he’s been asking for the past couple. It’s fine. No big deal. It’s a natural progression.”

“I don’t like him, Clarke. I don’t think he’s good for you.”

“He is plenty good for me,” she exclaims, a little too loudly. Her coworkers in the office glance over at her and she smiles tightly at them. “This is the best, healthiest relationship I have _ever_ had, mom, don’t fuck it up for me.”

She hangs up and takes a breath to calm down. It doesn’t work so she takes another, then another, another, another— clearly, deep breaths aren’t working. Her coffee pings done and she pours it into a travel mug and goes to her desk. There are papers everywhere and a post-it stuck to the screen on her computer that reads _congratulations!_ in Raven’s loopy handwriting. She laughs under her breath and peels it off and sticks it to a folder.

“Taking a break,” she tells her neighbor, Miller, pulling her coat off her chair and scarf plus hat from their hook. “Be back in fifteen.” He nods, not looking away from his computer as he scrolls through an Excel spreadsheet.

Coffee mug in her hand, Clarke hurries down the stairs until she hits ground floor. It’s freezing outside, early January, but it’s refreshing to inhale that hit of fresh, crisp air. It clears her mind and dispels her anger. She doesn’t know why her mom keeps harping on about the army— Clarke knows what Bellamy does for a job and she loves him in spite of it. But she is freaking out about moving in with him. She never thought their relationship would be so serious when they got together. Originally, it was a way to relax, laugh over French food or make-out in movie theaters like she was a teenager still.

Somehow it turned into a full-blown thing and Clarke can’t pinpoint when it happened.

 

 

Bellamy’s waiting for her when she’s buttoning her coat up after her dental checkup. She frowns as she smiles in that awkward what-are-you-doing-here way. “Hey,” she says, walking to him and enjoying the way his face lights up when he sees her. “What’s up?”

He shrugs, uncrossing his arms to put his hands at her waist, a gesture she’s not one-hundred-percent used to after five months. Then he kisses her and she pulls away. “God, Bellamy, my mouth feels gross, why’re you kissing me?”

He shrugs and clasps their hands together and pulls her out of the office. “Felt like it.”

She smiles in bemusement as he leader her to his car. Clarke had taken a bus here so doesn’t worry about her own car as she slides into the front seat.

“So. Where are we going?” she asks as she leans forward to fiddle with the radio.

“Nowhere in particular,” Bellamy admits with a nonchalant shrug, torso twisting to look behind as he backs out of the parking space. As he changes gears back into drive, he gives her a sly smirk. “Just wanted to see you.”

She resents that smirk because it makes him too damn good looking.

 

 

“I should get going,” she says, fingers teasing the curly tendrils of Bellamy’s hair. He mutters something into her neck, body half-sprawled over hers, sweat making his skin sticky as her hand runs down from his hair to lightly run over his shoulders.

Soon, the sun will going to rise in all its summer splendor and Clarke will have to hail a taxi to get home. He had picked her up last night in his beat-up Nissan and she had made another crack about the rust covering the front hub. He rolled his eyes and he took her to his apartment in the middle of nowhere with the thin walls and made her dinner. They had tried to watch a movie, but she had quickly ended that by straddling him and making out with him.

Clarke’s not sure how much sex they had last night, or when exactly cute coffee shop dates had devolved to dinner dates devoted to sex. She’s not sure she cares because it’s not like they _only_ have sex. They do other things. Last week she met Octavia, his sister and his only relative. They had brunch together, at a classy place downtown. She just graduated from college and said she was still figuring out where her place in the world is.

As Bellamy shifts again, body sliding lower, he slowly starts to suck at her collarbone and Clarke’s body bends even closer to his, naked bodies fully stuck together and moves so she’s on top of him again.

The sun rises and Clarke almost regrets not getting pretty much any sleep during the night, but they make scrambled eggs with feta cheese and spinach with some bacon just past six am. She laughs as she feeds him some, teasing him with baby cooing noises. He doesn’t take it well and starts tickling her and it’s a rush to get away from his long fingers.

It’s a perfect morning.

 

 

Not usually a stickler for absolute timeliness, Clarke doesn’t understand why she’s so frustrated with Bellamy’s tardiness. They did agree on ‘around 3’ so she has no right to be annoyed. It’s just nerves. They’ve been dating for a few weeks and the butterflies is a clear indication of just how much she likes this guy. She takes a deep breath in her seat and fiddles with her phone, cycling through apps: Facebook, text messages, the internet. She checks if she has any new emails and one does come up, but it’s another email from Victoria’s Secret about a new campaign they’re doing it.

She deletes it and puts her phone down. It’s beautiful outside. The snow has finally all melted and the sun is shining strong. Their date will go well. There’s no need for all these nerves, all this anxiety.

“Hey, Clarke,” someone says as they tap her shoulder. It’s Bellamy— she can recognize his voice and she turns to give him a smile over her shoulder.

“Hey,” she says and stands. Does she give him a kiss, a peck, or what? Clarke hasn’t done relationships in so fucking long, she’s lost.

He answers the question for her as he puts his arm around her waist and kisses her cheek. “Hope you weren’t waiting long,” he says as they go to order coffee.

Clarke quickly found out just how physical Bellamy is and she _loves_ it, how he cupped her face like a precious jewel when they first made out a couple weeks ago. “I wasn’t.”

 

 

There’s a brisk wind but Clarke has had enough of being cooped up indoors. It’s warm enough for a good run so she puts on her running gear and pulls on a windbreaker as well. She locks her apartment behind her, the one she moved in to after landing her job last year, and walks briskly to the nearby park.

Her mp3 player is secured on her arm and her earbuds won’t piss her off as she runs. Doing a few stretches with some White Stripes playing, Clarke starts with a quick walk for a couple rounds around the park before starting a steady job. Her eyes are on the sidewalk ten paces in front of her and she hits her stride.

It’s a Prince track that’s playing when she trips, sprawling gracelessly on the ground, banging her chin and landing on her arm funny. She groans, one earbud in and one out, and maneuvers so her arm isn’t pinned painfully to the ground by her body.

“You okay?” she hears through one ear as Prince croons in her other. A guy is jogging across to her, tall, in running gear and sneakers just like she is.

“Yeah,” she croaks, sitting up with care. Her body is already starting to ache and she brushes half-frozen gravel from her hands before rubbing her smarting chin. “I think I’m all good.”

“Let me help,” the stranger says, extending a hand. She glances up at his face quickly— tan, a few freckles, curly hair and kind eyes— and takes it. He places his hands on her shoulders as he surveys her. “It was a rough fall.”

“Yeah,” she says, discomforted by the proximity and steps away, brushing his hands away. “But I’m good, thanks.”

The relief on his face is genuine enough. “Thank god. I saw you fall from over there,” he gestures across to a wooded patch with a bench, “and heard you fall. Good to know you’re okay.”

“Yep,” she adds with a closed lip smile and they continue to stand there. Her music continues playing in one ear, moving abruptly from Prince to Rihanna. She winces and takes her mp3 player down to turn it off, but also to do something in this awkward situation.

“I’m Bellamy,” he says after she’s returned her mp3 player to her arm and sticks his hand out again.

She smiles and reaches out to shake hands. “Clarke.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! come catch me at my [tumblr](rosycheeked.tumblr.com) if you'd like to talk


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